TIMOLEON, THE FAVORITE OF FORTUNE. 287

Such liberty and prosperity as now ruled in Sicily
had not for a century been known, and when, three
or four years after the great victory of the Crimesus,
Timoleon suddenly died, the grief of the people was
universal and profound. His funeral obsequies were
splendidly celebrated at the public cost, his body was
burned on a vast funeral pile, and as the flames
flashed upward a herald proclaimed,—

“The Syracusan people solemnize, at the cost of
two hundred mine, the funeral of this man, the
Corinthian Timoleon, son of Timodemus. They
have passed a vote to honor him for all future time
with festival matches in music, horse and chariot
races, and gymnastics; because, after having put
down the despots, subdued the foreign enemy, and
recolonized the greatest among the ruined cities, he
restored to the Sicilian Greeks their constitution and
laws.”

And thus died one of the noblest and most success-
ful men the world has ever known. The fratricide
of his earlier years was for the good of mankind,
and his whole life was consecrated to the cause of
human liberty, while not a thought of self-aggran-
dizement seems to have ever disturbed his noble
soul.